More On Climategate II

As with the original, Climategate II involves email correspondence among various individuals, the “team,” who are highly influential in preparing the reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as other reports such as those by the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and a climate change report by the US National Research Council (NRC).

Global warming alarmists and their supporters in the press have tried to down play the leak by claiming they contain nothing new. Certainly, there is nothing new in the methods, but Climategate II gives additional detail on how members of the team misled the public and manipulated the contents of so-called scientific reports. In the links provided below, and in links that can be sourced from them, many examples can be found.

Among efforts to mislead the public as to the certainty of the global warming science, both Roger Pielke, Sr. and Roger Pielke, Jr, on their respective web sites, explain how research was dropped from important documents. Pielke Sr. explains how the NRC, Ben Santer (US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and Phil Jones (CRU) inappropriately interfered with much needed further research to reconcile surface temperature trends with tropospheric temperature trends.

Roger Pielke, Jr. explains how his research was excluded from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). What is particularly ludicrous is the charge by Jones and Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research) that the Pielke, et al, scientific paper was political. The IPCC is a political organization with scientific pretentions. Lead chapter authors of the IPCC calling a scientific paper political is illustrative of how the team twists language as the need requires.

The emails show the team was very aware that the warming of the troposphere above the tropics was not occurring as predicted in the models. This has been called the distinct human fingerprint. Ben Santer, et al, have attempted to cover up this disparity by expanding the error bounds of measurements, but their study is vague, at best. On November 14, 2011 Ben Santer participated in a public briefing of Representatives Ed Markey and Harry Waxman. Santer specifically discussed human fingerprints in global warming but failed to discuss the disparity between models and measurements over the tropics. Apparently, at least some members of the team cannot be relied upon to accurately present the state of the science to members of Congress.

Given the events this week, it may be appropriate to re-read John Brignell’s essay “How we know they know they are lying:” http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/lying.htm.

SEPP offers a series of links to commentators who have analyzed the Climategate II emails:

You can search the Climategate I and II emails here: http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php

Watts Up With That: the emails are real, and they are spectacular; a huge amount of information here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/

Steve McIntyre: One of the main themes of the emails is scientists admitting privately what they won’t admit publicly: